Power and Gender in the Letters of Michael Psellos

Although it has already been over 5 years since Papaioannou’s critical edition of the letters of Michael Psellos, one of the most prominent intellectuals of 11th-century Constantinople, came out and made all of the surviving letters available for scholars, this important corpus has yet to receive a focused analysis. One of the key challenges in interpreting Psellos’ letters is that they were personal messages written for specific individuals within a particular social and political context, which is not always clear. They are filled with literary flourishes and allusions which often allow for a multitude of possible interpretations. This paper argues that in order to gain a better understanding of these letters one has to read them through the lens of power. Michael Psellos is embedded in a network of relationships defined by power. His letters are directed to individuals who occupy different positions in this hierarchy, and the primary goal of most of his correspondence is to either directly influence them or to cultivate relationships that will increase his influence over time. In this context, gender performance and narratives are intertwined with power dynamics. In Byzantine society, masculinity was equated with power, while femininity was associated with weakness. Rather than a dichotomy, male and female were, however, viewed as poles on a spectrum which could be navigated in either direction by people. After briefly introducing the intersection of power and gender in Byzantine society, this paper employs narratological and rhetorical analysis to examine key examples from Psellos’ letters. It investigates how Psellos employs gender and power dynamics in his letters to achieve his objectives. In conclusion, the paper demonstrates that analysing Psellos’ letters through the intertwined lenses of power and gender provides crucial insights into how they functioned within their broader cultural context of Byzantine society.